Radu Savoae, 28, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in the scam. [Picture: Metropolitan Police Service]

Constanta Agrigoroaie, 23, and Radu Savoae, 28, of Mornington Avenue, in Gants Hill, were sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court today after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud, six counts of possession of fraudulent ID cards and possessing equipment to make fraudulent ID and bank cards.

Agrigoroaie was sentenced to six years in prison, while Savoae was given eight years.

The criminals claimed to be from technology company Apple in emails sent to more than 150 people, which said their accounts had been compromised and they needed to update their details.

A link took the victims to a bogus website, where they updated their information - including their bank details.

Once the information was given, an email was sent directly to the scammers, which they used to take large quantities of money.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Service said: “This money was then used to purchase travel tickets to allow foreign national offenders to enter the UK to commit crime - many crimes being on London’s transport network.”

The scam was uncovered and on February 26 detectives joined officers from Bedfordshire Police at Luton Airport for an operation.

An inbound flight from Romania was intercepted and six passengers who claimed they did not know each other were found to have had their tickets purchased from the same computer.

The purchase was traced to Agrigoroaie and Savoae’s address and they were later arrested.

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